Blessed Ladislaus of Gielniów

Blessed Ladislaus of Gielniów was a priest of the Bernardines, that is, the Observant Franciscans, superior of their Polish province, a preacher, and one of the first poets known by name to write in Polish. The Roman Martyrology commemorates him on May 4, the day of his death, as a priest who preached the Passion of the Lord with great zeal and celebrated it in devout hymns. In Poland his memorial is kept on September 25.

He was born around 1440 in Gielniów near Opoczno. The exact year of his birth is not known, and the sources give his baptismal name differently. He studied in Krakow, probably at the Academy there. In the early 1460s he entered the Bernardines and took the religious name Ladislaus (Władysław). After his religious studies he was ordained a priest.

In the order he held various offices in many friaries. Twice he stood at the head of the Polish province of the Bernardines: from 1487 to 1490 and from 1496 to 1499. He took part in the general chapters at Urbino in 1490 and in Milan in 1498. During his time in office the province grew by new friaries, among them those at Skępe and Polotsk.

He was renowned as a preacher. He was among the first clergy to bring the Polish language into preaching and religious singing. He composed songs in Polish, often Marian ones, and also wrote in Latin. His best-known work is the “Żołtarz Jezusów” (“Psalter of Jesus”), a cycle of meditations on the Passion of Christ that begins with the words “Jezusa Judasz przedał” (“Judas sold Jesus”).

From 1504 he was guardian, that is, superior, of the Bernardine friary at the church of Saint Anne in Warsaw. According to tradition, on Good Friday 1505, while preaching there on the Passion of the Lord, he was rapt in ecstasy, rose above the pulpit, and kept repeating the name of Jesus. He died a few weeks later, on May 4, 1505, in Warsaw, and soon after his death people began to venerate him.

In 1750 Pope Benedict XIV confirmed his cult, declaring him blessed. In 1759 Clement XIII made him patron of the Kingdom of Poland and of Lithuania, and in 1962 John XXIII made him patron of Warsaw. John Paul II, receiving pilgrims from the capital in 1996, said that Warsaw cannot be understood without Blessed Ladislaus of Gielniów.